Yesterday I predicted that President Obama will nominate Judge Diane Wood (7th Cir.) to the Supreme Court. My colleague Elie is on record as predicting that Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan.
Both of these predictions still seem viable, in light of how Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) reacted after meeting with Obama yesterday to talk about SCOTUS nominees. From the Salt Lake Tribune:
President Barack Obama invited Sen. Orrin Hatch into the Oval Office for a private discussion Wednesday about his impending Supreme Court pick — and then Hatch immediately drove downtown to the Cato Institute where he ripped the president’s approach to nominating judges….
At a Cato event billed as a speech on health care, Hatch said Obama has clearly looked for qualifications that go beyond a strict adherence to the Constitution.
“Last summer, President Obama talked often about how judges should be guided by their empathy. This year, the buzz phrase seems to be core constitutional values,” Hatch said. “This is the same old thing, just another cloaking device for judges who seek to control the Constitution.”
So what exactly went down at the Obama-Hatch tête-à-tête?
